UFC star Sean Strickland, 32, has apparently been through the wringer literally and metaphorically throughout his childhood. Comedian Theo Van had a chat with the UFC star in his podcast, “This Past Weekend”, in which the star touched up on his childhood wounds with the comedian.
The podcast which was mostly light-hearted and humorous also had a few serious, as well as informative, moments. Sean starts by saying that “right now life is good” as he has money and a belt, but he lets us know that despite this no one could “pay him to relive his life”. He revealed that when he was younger he was a “pseudo-white supremacist”, and was kicked out of high school for hate crimes. Sean was such a bad kid that he was homeschooled for a while before being put back into school only to be kicked out again because of hate crimes, cutting class, and fighting.
Sean revealed that his “piece of shit” and “racist” grandfather modeled this behavior for him, and he ended up like most children becoming influenced by what he was taught. He stated that his father was also not the best man; and that he would sleep in his parents’ room because he was “scared his father was going to kill his mother”. Sean goes on to express that his drunkard father was abusive towards his mother; recalling an incident in which his father got on top of his mother, strangling her, and telling her that he was going to kill her.
Sean heartbreakingly starts to get emotional while discussing these hardships, tearing up as he says, “Dude, I remember like laying in bed, like, I remember I stopped believing in God man like fucking…(scoffs) like I had fucking um, yeah crazy shit dude.”
Sean also reveals that when he started training in ninth grade he realized he wasn’t racist, he was just angry, and he felt happiness for the first time the moment he got beat up in training. Martial arts was an outlet for him to process, as well as release, this anger and trauma built up within him as a child; he ended up falling in love with it, becoming happy, and successful.
